The Day Reno Gave Up
by aphelion-orion
Summary: Reno has a bit of a problem, Rude tries to help, and Cloud saves the day by being himself. [nonspoilery postAC ficlet, fluff, humor, RenoxCloud]


**Fandom:** FF7 (AC)  
**Pairing:** RenoxCloud  
**Rating:** PG-13 (?)  
**Warnings:** craaaack! humor! fluff! and Reno! (Yes, that is a warning. Just ask Rufus.)  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned FF7, this would have been a definite possibility.  
**Notes: **request fic for evakasumi

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**The Day Reno Gave Up**

Today, thought Rude, was shaping up to be a very, very bad day. In fact, the apocalypse was probably close. Because today, Reno had given up and stopped trying to sex up Cloud Strife.

It had been a source of endless hilarity to Rude and the rest of the Turks, watching Reno fruitlessly chase after Strife. It had been a constant for the past half year, with Reno pulling out all the stops and Strife remaining frustratingly oblivious. But no matter the result - or lack thereof - Reno had always come up with another idea and tried again on their next meeting.

That is, until ten minutes ago, when his partner had staggered into the room, passed the coffee machine, slumped down in one of the metal chairs and admitted defeat.

"I give up," Reno moaned again, ignoring the cup of coffee Rude offered in consolation. "I've already tried everything I could think of, but it's all no good." Thinking back to when Reno's obsession first started (all due to a casual remark by Elena that Strife had "a really nice ass"), Rude supposed that was true.

Plan A had been the subtle approach. One would think that subtle and Reno were two words that pushed away from each other like the wrong ends of two magnets, but in Reno-terms, the redhead had been subtle. This method had involved threatening any potential competitors or love interests, with mixed results. Of course, ordinary people ran screaming when faced with a maniacally grinning Turk threatening to electrocute their unmentionable bits if they didn't stop ogling Strife, but when faced with Strife's friends, things hadn't gone so well. Tifa Lockheart had used a combat move that could only be referred to as 'kicking him in the balls' and the ex-Turk Valentine had merely flexed his claw in a vaguely threatening manner and bluntly informed Reno that he was not ogling Strife, he was mentally undressing him, but that wasn't really any business of Reno's, now was it?

Rude wasn't sure if Valentine had been joking or not. In any case, Strife had only blinked in mild surprise when Reno barked the same threat at a poor, hapless waitress upon their next meeting (she had been smiling a little too friendly at Cloud, in Reno's opinion) and said to no one in particular that what Tifa and Vincent had been saying was true - Reno was in a really bad mood lately.

Plan B was about being blatantly obvious. In Reno's book, that meant doing everything short of whipping it out of his pants. It involved trying to have phone sex with Strife, making lewd gestures at Strife, leaving dirty messages on his answer phone and trying to grope a more or less private area of him every other minute. Strife's reaction to all this had been to tell Reno that he should only call him when it was important and to stop using up all the free slots on his answer phone, and would he be so kind as to remove his hand from Strife's ass if he didn't want Strife's sword shoved someplace very uncomfortable, please and thank you.

Plan C was trying to make Strife want him instead of the other way around. It involved smoky eye shadow, bondage gear, nipple rings, and - to his fellow Turks' horror - unbelievably tight leather pants with slashes in all the right - or, from Rude's point of view, wrong - places. It had also been fairly short-lived. Upon seeing Reno dressed like a male dominatrix, Strife had blinked innocently once again and asked if one didn't have Kadaj's perfect 20-inch waist, wasn't sitting down in those leather pants a little uncomfortable?

Plan D had been the classic approach. It had also meant being as un-Reno-like as possible, because it involved actually wearing an impeccable suit, brushing his hair, bringing chocolates to meetings with Strife and sending him flowers with pseudo-anonymous cards attached (because nobody in Midgar had a scrawl as terrible as Reno's). Strife's reaction to all this, Rude had to admit, had been priceless.

Was Reno feeling okay, was his reaction to seeing Reno in a spotlessly ironed suit, because he was looking so very much different? Also, after testing them to make sure they weren't poisoned, Strife distributed the chocolates among his friends, because it was awfully nice of Reno to bring his favorites, but they were Marlene's and Yuffie's favorites, too, and anyway, unless Reno was aiming for him getting cavities, surely he wouldn't mind if Cloud shared those with his friends? And moreover, why was he giving him non-poisoned chocolates if he was also sending him veiled death threats, because what else did black roses stand for except the death threats of psycho assassins?

By the time Rude had moved to recounting Plan C, Reno had jumped up and started banging his head against the nearby wall. Now, he stopped the rhythmic smacking to glare at Rude and hiss, "They were red roses. _Red_!"

No, replied Rude, unless Strife and he were both colorblind, the roses had been black, and Reno being the colorblind one was altogether much more likely.

"So what! I happen to like black!" yelled Reno and resumed bashing his forehead in.

Rude briefly contemplated stopping him before he did some permanent damage to the wallpaper, but before he could say as much, something else occurred to him. "Hey, partner. How come you never set aside your pride and -"

"_Pride_!" Reno exclaimed in frustration, stopping his banging again. "I don't have any pride left! When I started trying to score Strife, I nearly choked on my pride while swallowing it!"

The banging started again.

Rude decided to ignore the little outburst and continued. "- and grabbed him by the collar, pushed him against a wall and stuck your tongue down his throat?"

Reno didn't even falter this time and screamed, "Because I-!"

Then he stopped. Stood rigidly for a good minute, then slowly turned to face his partner. Rude ruefully examined Reno's face, and hoped that the dent on his forehead from all his encounters with the wall was permanent. The dent in the wall from all its encounters with Reno's forehead certainly was.

"Hey, wait a minute! Sticking... my tongue... down his throat?" Reno's expression was brightening by the second. "That's it! Partner, you're a goddamned _genius_! I owe you big time!"

He all but ran out the door. Rude stayed behind and tried not to think about the fact that he had just assisted in the birth of Plan E.

---

Reno found Cloud in the courtyard preparing to leave, his meeting with the president apparently over. Reno bent down and tried to catch his breath, realizing that Plan E was very much premature and he was at a loss how to make do without the obligatory wall.

Cloud stopped packing things on his motorcycle and turned to blink at him in that adorably - damn him! - confused way of his.

"Reno?"

"Ahem," began Reno when the air was getting to his lungs again. "If you don't like what I'm about to do, you can just blame everything on Rude."

He didn't get any further, because Cloud Strife had just seized him by the collar, pushed him against his bike and... _proceeded to shove his tongue down Reno's throat_.

"Hmmppff!" Reno managed between licks from Cloud's tongue, before deciding that it would be a good idea to actually kiss back.

"Sorry, Reno," the blonde gasped when they finally separated, a light pink flush stealing across his cheeks. Reno was doing a very good impression of a confused Cloud Strife and was additionally moving his jaw like a dying fish.

"But I really couldn't wait anymore. I tried to be subtle, but it didn't work. You were always going about scaring people or flooding my voice mail with nonsensical babble or trying to embarrass me in public or impersonating Kadaj or trying to get me to die from sugar overdose or sending me death threats disguised as flowers -" Here, Cloud had to pause for breath, and Reno took the opportunity to try and look less like a shell-shocked puffer fish and more like his usual alluring self.

"I wasn't sure if you liked me at all, sometimes. So I figured if physically attacking you wouldn't give you a hint, nothing would. When it comes to these things, you're really terribly oblivious."

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A/N: Wheee! That was fun! Hope you liked it. C&C, please?


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